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Young Americans mug Canucks

Dan Silkstone in Vancouver

American dream ... Zach Parise and Ryan Kesler of the United States embrace after Kesler scored the final goal of the Americans’ 5-3 win. Photo: Getty Images

I HAVE heard the sound of an entire nation collectively panicking – all accompanied by the strains of Outkast's Grammy-awarded hit Hey Ya. It sounds like the greatest party you ever attended suddenly turned into a brutal street mugging.

It happened approximately 41 seconds into the most keenly anticipated event at these Olympic Games.

I have seen AFL grand finals, grand slam tennis deciders, NBA and NFL matches and a world record in an Olympic 100 metres final. I have seen England run out at the old Wembley Stadium. I've never heard a roar that even closely approximates that which greeted Canada's ice hockey team when it skated out on Sunday, the crowd roaring "Go Canada Go!" like they wanted to lift the roof and then watching as their evening abruptly fell through the floor.

Tickets were being scalped for thousands of dollars, the city centre and every bar were packed. A lucky 17,000 people were inside (and one immortal in the form of Wayne Gretsky). They were all mid "Go Canad..." when the unthinkable happened. Within a minute, the unfancied American team raced the puck down the ice and a tepid slapshot from Brian Rafalski snuck by keeper Martin Brodeur on his near side. Cue Outkast.

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It was not great goal tending, and that escaped nobody in the room. The major debate around this Team Canada has been the tending position. The candidates were Brodeur and Roberto Luongo – popular star player with the local Vancouver Canucks.

Oops.

Canada is proud to be hosting these games, and newly muscular in its desire for gold medals. But the only thing Canadians really want out of this carnival is hockey glory. Hockey redemption. This match had long loomed as a stumbling block for a star-packed side and an educated nation knew it. They had been so nervous.

Nobody expected them to stumble quite so early.

The nation had stopped to watch. Imagine a rivalry every bit as fierce as Carlton versus Collingwood. Now imagine those two teams had not played each other in a meaningful match in eight years. It had been a lopsided rivalry for all that. Last night's win, when it came at the frenzied end – was the first American victory over Canada in Olympic ice hockey since 1960.

For the loser, most likely, a dreaded prize. Just as they did four years ago, Canada lost a pool match they were heavily favoured to win. Just as it was four years ago, the upshot will almost certainly be a second-round meeting with Russia. Four years ago, the Russians were too good. This time they have – in Alexander Ovechkin – the best player in the world.

Oh Canada.

So much was at stake on Sunday. In 2002, at Salt Lake City, Canada had beaten the Americans on their own turf. Four year later, Canada arrived in Turin to defend their Olympic gold medal, and left, humiliated, in seventh place. On home soil, that could not be allowed to happen again.

A grizzled reporter next to me said he had covered every Olympics – summer and winter – for the past 40 years. Never, he said, had he seen a more important contest that was not a gold medal decider. You had to keep telling yourself that this was a pool match, not a final.

If it were a pool it was one filled with sharks, constantly moving – as they must in this sport – and constantly menacing. As a spectacle, it was fast and skilful and surprisingly controlled. When you see hockey live, the truly surprising thing is how often people get mashed, face first, into the glass and don't fight.

With their squad selection, the Americans had gone for raw speed in a game that sometimes feels like an endless series of fast breaks – devoid of anything recognisable as build-up play. It left them younger and lighter – a worry in a relentlessly physical sport. The Canadians had gone, simply, for class. In salary terms, the Canucks line-up was worth almost twice as much as the Young Americans. If the game had been decided by cash register, the result would have been clear.

Instead it was decided by youthful energy and – mostly – by the best goal tender in the world.

Hockey is a sport that favours immoveable object in the contest with irresistible force. That object was Ryan Miller. All had known he was the Americans' best chance of stealing a result. All in red had fretted about it.

But watching the 29-year-old's series of improbable saves was still shocking. To an untrained observer, this was the case but it held true also for the 17,000 fanatics, who left devastated. Canadians are too pessimistic to have been surprised. Still, they knew it should not have happened.

The Buffalo Sabres tender saved 42 of 45 shot attempts as Canada peppered the goal all night. The Canucks outshot the US by more than two to one and by a margin of 14 to three in the final period as they attacked with a desperation that proved defeat was an unbearable thought.

"Man he's brilliant," said one fan afterwards. "I just wanna punch him so hard right now."

For Canada, the irresistible force came in the form of NHL superstars led by Sidney Crosby and Rick Nash (where were Stills and Young?). After falling behind early, they rallied and dominated and hit back with a fluky deflected goal to Eric Staal. Pandemonium. Again, though, the crowd's frenzy was rudely interrupted. After just 22 seconds, Team USA scored another sucker punch as Rafalski again worked a wristy shot past Brodeur.

Rafalski – a workaday "good ordinary" player – had scored just four goals in 57 games this NHL season. Suddenly, he had four from three games at these Olympics and two in 15 minutes against the mighty Canada.

Miller was blocking everything, plucking the puck out of the air like the most casual of slipsmen, throwing his body into each goalmouth fracas and coming up with possession. Canada again levelled but the Americans kept absorbing pressure, scoring on the break, and tracking back fast to stop the Canadian offence.

Early in the final period, when Rafalski – on fire – found team veteran Jamie Langenbrunner and a long-range slapshot made it 4-2, the panic was unstoppable.

For the Americans this was not quite a miracle on ice to rival the famed win over Soviet Russia by a bunch of college kids in 1980. But it sure was an improbability.

The final minutes were exhilarating. Another goalmouth scramble ended with Crosby in the net and the net almost in the front row. Where was the puck though?

Miller had it.

Nobody dared breathe as Canada threw everything at the US goal. Nash flashed a ball across the goalmouth, and Crosby deflected it in. A moment of quality from two star players. The roar that went up was so heavy you felt it like wind.

They attacked in constant waves, and Miller kept them out. And with 45 seconds to go and the Canadian keeper out of his goal, another fast break swept the puck into a net that was – like the feeling in the stands – surprisingly but unarguably empty. The Americans rushed to dive all over the scorer as if they had won gold. The Canadians sagged as if they had lost it. The game was over 3-5.